Committee Approves Military Budget Bill

November 2, 1991|The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate negotiators on Friday approved a $291 billion military budget bill for the 1992 fiscal year, making few changes in the Pentagon`s spending plans outlined a year ago before the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and the diminished Soviet military threat.

The compromise bill for the year that began on Oct. 1 represents a 2 percent decline after inflation from last year`s military budget and follows the path that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced last year to cut Pentagon spending by about 20 percent over five years.

The spending plan now advances to the full House and Senate, which are expected to approve it next week and pass it along to President Bush for his approval. Bush is expected to sign the measure.

The dramatic upheaval in the Soviet Union had some influence on the compromise agreement that legislators worked out in private meetings over the past two months.

It prompted negotiators to adopt a plan to transfer up to $1 billion from the Pentagon`s budget to humanitarian aid and economic assistance for the Soviet Union to help avert chaos there.

And it helped deal a crippling blow to the Stealth bomber, the radar- evading aircraft originally designed to defeat Soviet air defenses and bomb nuclear missile silos. Each plane costs $865 million -- another big drawback.

But legislators say the abortive Soviet coup, Bush`s plan to eliminate thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons and President Mikhail Gorbachev`s decision to reciprocate caught Congress near the end of a budget year unwilling or unable to reopen last year`s budget agreement to make deeper cuts in military spending.

The rallying cry of legislators now is, ``Wait until next year!`` Democrats and Republicans predict that the lessening Soviet threat, pressing domestic spending priorities and the political imperatives of a presidential election year will force Congress and the administration to renegotiate last year`s budget agreement to permit the shifting of Pentagon funds to domestic needs.

The agreement stipulated that through the 1993 fiscal year money could not be shifted from military ledgers to other spending programs.

DEFENSE BILL

Highlights of the 1992 defense authorization bill completed by House and Senate negotiators on Friday:

WEAPONS

-- B-2 STEALTH BOMBER PROGRAM: $1.8 billion to keep the production line open but no firm authority to purchase additional planes. Another $1 billion that could be used to buy one plane but only if the Pentagon certifies that the B-2 has met certain technical standards and only if both the House and Senate pass a bill permitting release of the money.

-- B-1B BOMBER: $115 million for safety improvements.

-- STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE: $4.15 billion, about $1.2 billion more than in 1991. It includes $390 million to develop space-based missile interceptors and $1.53 billion to develop for deployment a ground-based system to defend against limited attacks against the United States by long-range missiles. Also, $848 million to develop a system to defend against short-range missiles.

-- TOMAHAWK CRUISE MISSILES: About $580 million to manufacture more missiles of the kind used in the Persian Gulf war.

-- SSN-21 SEAWOLF ATTACK SUB: $2.2 billion for one.

-- F-117A STEALTH FIGHTER-BOMBER: To resume production, $560 million to make four planes. The bill said as many as 12 new planes could be purchased over three years, even though the Air Force has said it does not want any more.

-- F-16 FALCON FIGHTERS: For production of 48, $1.07 billion, plus $78 million in advance procurement funds for 24 of the aircraft in 1993 and $175 million in research and development funds.

PEOPLE

-- PAY: A 4.2 percent raise for all members of the armed forces.

-- ACTIVE PERSONNEL: A cut in active-duty military personnel of 106,358, or 5 percent, to a total by Sept. 30, 1992, of 1.88 million.

-- RESERVES: A cut in National Guard and Reserve members of 37,580, instead of the 105,076 proposed by the Bush administration. Another 33,505 would be cut in 1993.